First off, I love Pascal’s Wager. It has given me much food for thought, and I’ve incorporated it into a large number of arguments. Second, it is entirely useless in its base form. This is why, despite my fondness for the theory, I find myself echoing the critiques of the evangelist. For presenting the gospel, it is not a very useful tool.
You’ll probably see why when you look back at the original thesis. Pascal’s wager operated on the assumption that the subject making the bet was a rational person who didn’t know if God was real. An interesting premise, but also fiction. The fact of the matter is that every single person, whether he denies it outwardly or not, knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that God exists and that he will be held accountable to this very real God someday. This knowledge, when denied, also disproves the former requirement of the premise, that he be a rational person. After all, the fool who says in his heart, “there is no God,” could hardly be called a rational person.
Pascal’s wager is horrible in its base form for evangelizing because it was not intended to win them to salvation. It was intended to persuade them to affirm God’s existence, which, as we have already seen, is a position that every human being intuitively knows to be true whether they acknowledge it or not.
That being said, nobody should scoff at the idea of risk analysis in evangelistic endeavors. You just need to use it properly.
Setting Assumptions
Pascal’s Wager was designed to address the atheist and agnostic, but not the Muslim. It works this way for a reason. Unlike other religions that affirm a system of rewards and punishments in the afterlife, atheism functions as a denial of such stakes entirely. Therefore, when you are arguing with an atheist, you will spend your time slogging through the nihilistic, self-indulgent morass of his personal philosophy that exists for the sole purpose of justifying his belief in nothing. It’s tiring to do this. Possibly futile. But would a rational person see it that way? In this scenario, it may be possible to utilize Pascal's Wager to identify the rational man.
Suppose two men are in a building when the fire alarm goes off. One man stands up immediately and runs for the exit, while the other continues to do nothing but sit on the couch. Of the two, which is the rational man? The man that runs, obviously. He understands that if there truly is a fire, he risks his very life by staying put, and if the fire alarm is a hoax, then his brief jog has cost him nothing. There's no way of knowing what the man who stayed the couch was thinking. He wagered his very life, betting for no reason at all that this warning was a false alarm.
The unsaved man, constantly reminded by his own conscience, has been hearing the fire alarm his whole life. Through atheism, he may have even concluded that the fire alarm is just his brain playing tricks on him. But the rational man would not ignore those warnings. The rational man would run.
Now, the burden of proof lies upon the atheist. “If there’s nothing to worry about, prove it.” But what can he do to prove he is not wagering his soul for his nihilism? He can do nothing.
Cultural Christianity
This leads me to my second most used scenario: the political applications. Of course, you have to modify the premise of the wager to fit the scenario, but it can fit in just about anywhere.
At the most basic level, politics is just people trying to accomplish things for the common good. Sure, people can overcomplicate the issues, but at the end of the day, politics are supposed to be about the good of the people. And yet, when discussing things that are good for the people, politicians often forget to discuss the cost. Sometimes, those costs can be measured in monetary terms, but at other times, those costs are paid with a spiritual price. THOSE costs are hard to measure.
And that’s where Pascal’s wager comes in. A brief cost-benefit analysis shows us that we don’t risk anything to assume that Christianity is true, but to bank on it being false is to wager people’s souls. Let’s consider a debate about banning trade on Sunday (blue laws).
Starting premise: A legislature can approve of trade on Sunday, or it can pass Sunday Sabbath laws. Like Pascal’s original premise, they are quite literally forced to make a choice on the matter, and collectively, the legislative body may be unsure of God’s existence.
Wager premise 1 (Christianity is true): If Sabbath laws are passed (and enforced) and God exists, the people gain divine favor, and the day is rightly hallowed. If the laws are rejected, then the people risk divine wrath.
Wager premise 2 (Christianity is false): If Sabbath laws are passed (and enforced) and God does not exist, then some people may be inconvenienced one day a week. If the laws are rejected, then some business owners will gain the ability to keep their stores open 24/7.
So, from the perspective of a cost-benefit analysis, it’s clear that the risk of premise 1 (We disobey the living God) far outweighs any perceived temporal benefits we might gain where God does not exist. No rational person would risk divine wrath, societal ruin, and leading souls into grave sin just to appease a handful of merchants who like to stay open. Thus, the legislature, weighing the infinite consequences against fleeting, abstract economic gains, should prudently enact Sunday Sabbath laws to safeguard both the spiritual and temporal well-being of the Commonwealth.
That's the argument, at least. You've got to find someone who wants to appear rational though. It seems that a large number of my current political opponents are not only hellbent on intentionally incurring God's wrath, but somehow see the destruction of society as a benefit of disobedience.
Of course, when against people like that, you don't need an argument at all. You just need power.